Bible-in-Schools

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 12, 23 March 1905, Page 2

Bible-in-Schools

Thje retiring President of the Methodist Conference apparently sees mote moonshine than sunshine in the immediate prospects of the Bible-in-schools campaign. He regards it as a phrase and little more. l The Biblu is not,' said he a t the recent Conference, 'in the schools of the Colony, and at present it can hardly be said to bp on the wav there ' On Tinned ay last a small and seemingly somewhat dispirited meeting took place in Palmerston North to put some horse-power— or, rather, lungnpower — into the campaign. One reverend orator (Rev. C. C. Harper) strongly condemned ' playing right Into the hands of party politicians.' Another equally reverend advocate of the sectarianising of our public schools (Rev. I. Jolly) as stoutly maintained that it ww r a 9 indispensably necessary to 'drag the movement into ' the turmoil of the political arena ' and to ' let politicians know that the question means votes.' The Rev. C. C. Harper ' felt he was peifectly justified in saying there, was hardly a person in Palmerston qualified to express an opinion on the question.' The Rev. I. Jolly heaved a chunk of old red \ands.lone at Us reverend confrere by quoting the sham, amateur, open-"ote • plebiscite ' as evidence that there are whole battalions of people in Palmerston North qualified l Vo express an opinion on the ques-tion.' The proceedings ended by the ipayment of sundry contributions towards the expenses of the hired political agitator whom the Bible-in-schools Conference is sending to stump the country in the interests of a group of clerical ' Weary Willies ' that are too indolent to attend to their proper duty of instructing unto righteousness the children of their various faiths. We shall be prepared to believe in the sincerity of those dilettante black-coated servants of the Lord when they begin to invest in the Christian instruction of the youth of their flocks as much jawbone and as many bawbees as they are now sinking in a sordid political campaign for the purpose of shifting to the shoulders 1 of lay State officials one of the elementary daities of the Christian minis fry. In the meantime, it is just as well to remind them that there is and can be no such thing as ' non-sec-tarian ' religious instruction The term is simply a threadbare and not over-honest paity watchword. To out Bible-innschools folk what is Protestant is nonsectarian ; what is Catholic is sectarian An oditonal article ijn the last January issue of the ' Reformed Church Messenger ' (Amenaan) tells how useless and unprofitable is every attempt in the German Fatherland to mipart a religious training to children in the Sunultan or mixed State school. 'At a largely attended meeting, recently held at Banner ' (says the Philadelphia ' Catholic Standard ' saimmaiising the ' Messenger *> ' aiticle), teachers and others jdermanded that the existing Simultan schools should be abolished for five reasons: (1) The Sinmltan school furnishes a poor religious training ; (2) for this reason it impairs Irue patriotism ; (3) it undermines the force of personality, because the teacher cannot teach what he believes , (4) it disturbs the peace between Catholics and Protestants ; (!>) it does violence to tftie conscience of parents by obliging them to send tiheir cnildren to schools not approved by thcim.' Such considerations, howe\er, will probably ha>\e no effect upon the minds of the Biblc-in-schools clergy. So long as they are relieved — at the general taxpayers' expense—of an onerous and unpl-easiant duty of their calling, it apparently matters little to them that the hapless little ones of their flocks be spiritually dragged up, during their most plastic and impressionable years, on minimum doses of agnosticism, or of colorless philosophy, or (at best) of boiled-down Unitarianism.